profiles - a light-hearted look at industry personalities

No. 87 in a continuing series

Caricatures by

Alan Graham

Marketing Director, LSC Lighting Systems

Alan Graham was born in Yallourn, a small country town 100km east of Melbourne in Australia. Like a lot of males of his time he grew up with the time-honoured tradition of playing football (Aussie rules of course) and having school interrupt his plans to be a league star.

Finding he now had some time on his hands, he took on that other love of the Aussie male of the time - cars. Nearing the end of his secondary education, and luckily not having killed himself in his pursuits, he was faced with the prospect of employment. Finding he had a natural talent to draw and living near the epicentre of power generation for the State of Victoria, he decided that a career in drafting with the State Electricity Commission was the way to go.

A few years on and another standard pursuit of the Aussie kicked in - the desire to travel. With careful planning and no money he figured that he could circumnavigate the world and have a load of fun doing so. He set off to his first destination - the USA, and the commencement of this adventure highlighted three experiences that had sadly passed the young Alan by: food, alcohol (excess of) and women, so now was the time to make up for these omissions.

He managed to explore the USA and ended up in Canada (although he can't remember how). Here, the female experience took on a wider dimension when he met and in due course married his wife Allyce. But keen to get back to his football, he convinced his young wife that Aussie rules were better and they moved back to Melbourne in 1983.

Putting his superb drafting skills to work, Alan joined a small design drafting bureau that just happened to share the same building as the fledgling LSC Electronics. He subsequently moved onto other employment and got involved in the design of early mobile phones.

However, his canny skills hadn't gone unnoticed by the LSC boys and in 1986 they offered him a position with the company, where he took to the excitement of a fast growing small business with great energy. During the subsequent years he has held almost every post possible in the company and has finally settled in the position of Marketing Director.

Alan has not lost his ability to draw and can knock out a plan for LSC's stand at PLASA on a computer faster than anyone else. He has input onto LSC's systems both their past and present ranges of products and has helped win an Australian design award along the way. His latest baby, the EKO dimmer, shown at ABTT this year, is about to hit the streets.

Over the past few years, on the back of the successful maXim control desk, he has almost single-handedly set up over 50 LSC distributors worldwide - and is always on the lookout for even more LSC converts.

Alan lives in a bay suburb of Melbourne with his wife and two children and has never lost his love of wine, cars, football - and a good product.

Look out for the next subject in our Profile series...

© 1999 - 2024 Entertainment Technology Press Limited News Stories